


the weary and the wild

by mimsical



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dom Drop, Domspace, M/M, Predator/Prey, Risk Aware Consensual Kink, Subspace, The Most Dangerous Game AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-04 23:00:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12781491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimsical/pseuds/mimsical
Summary: "I wanted the ideal animal to hunt," explained the general. "So I said, 'What are the attributes of an ideal quarry?' And the answer was, of course, 'It must have courage, cunning, and, above all, it must be able to reason."'"But no animal can reason," objected Rainsford."My dear fellow," said the general, "there is one that can."OR: Dirk hides. Jake seeks.





	1. wound up like a weapon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, this fic is a bit of a wild one. surprise is an important element to this story, so i'll put chapter content warnings in the endnotes. please notice: this fic is tagged Risk Aware Consensual Kink. read the warnings if you're concerned, and then consider yourself warned. 
> 
> this fic is vaguely based on a short story by richard conell called "the most dangerous game" or "the hounds of zaroff." you definitely don't need to read it to follow this story, but it's decently homoerotic and will give you a good sense of what's going to go down in this fic if you're interested. except this fic contains 100% less murder. though i will warn that it is very dated and has a couple shitty moments about race. [you can read it here.](https://fiction.eserver.org/short/the_most_dangerous_game) the quote in the summary comes from this story.

Jake kisses your cheek in a friendly way, eyes bright. “Two hours, then I’ll be hot on your tail,” he reminds you. “I’ll start the timer as soon as you’re out of sight.”

You bounce on your toes and shake out your arms, nervous energy zinging through you. “Don’t be afraid to cry uncle when you can’t find me,” you say lightly. “And no fucking cheating, I swear to god. If you tap into your hope powers then I automatically win.”

“Me, cheat?” Jake puts on a face of such false wounded pride. “I’d never!”

“Sure,” you say. Your feet are practically itching in your boots with the need to start already. “Guess I’ll get going, then.”

Jake taps his phone and holds up the timer for you to see. “See you soon!” He drops you an exaggerated wink.

“Not fucking likely,” you say, and head for the door without looking back. You make yourself take the first flight of stairs at a measured pace, not wanting to give Jake the delight of listening to you bolt like a frightened rabbit. What the hell is he going to do with the next two hours? If you find out he used the time to watch a movie you’re going to be pissed as fuck. He’ll probably do something to prep. Check over his guns and load them, inventory his sylladex.

You hit the landing and turn sharply to rattle down the next flight. The final set of stairs is across the house and your pace picks up. You have the crawling feeling of being watched though there’s no reason that Jake would’ve followed you. It’s too fucking soon to be this on edge. You’re still in your own god damn house. At the top of the stairs you give in to the urge to check over your shoulder and find nothing but the dark hallway and shut doors. Despite this, the sense of not being alone when you by all rights should be won’t leave you.

By the time you reach the bottom you’re taking the steps three at a time. You burst through the front door and run for the trees as if all of Zaroff’s hounds were on your heels.

Your mad sprint through the jungle only lasts so long before you remember what an obvious trail you’re leaving. Two hours until Jake follows you, right, you have time to slow the fuck down and remember your plan. You make yourself breathe, slowly and evenly, so your lizard brain will stop gibbering about what a bad idea it was to agree to let someone hunt you on their own turf. Taking much more care, you make your way to the little river that snakes across the island. Oldest trick in the book, hiding your trail in water. Of course, that leaves Jake with just a coin flip on which direction to take first, but you think he won’t anticipate where you’re heading. Hopefully. Maybe.

More deep breaths. You pick your way through the jungle, doing your damnedest to break as few twigs as possible and to not crush the plants too obviously underfoot. This shit comes natural to Jake after how he spent his childhood. You’ve done your best to learn, but for all your bravado you’re not all that confident at your ability to stay ahead of Jake for long.

The game is this: Jake gives you a headstart, then hunts you down. No powers, no flying unless you’re about to be seriously injured in a fall or similar. Supplies are fine. You have your katana and some useful tools. Food and water. Warmer layers, though you don’t need those yet. Right now you’re just shy of high noon and you’re sweating enough that it drips down your back. Other than that, no holds barred, really. If Jake catches you, and if he can keep ahold of you, he gets to do what he likes. If you can stay ahead of him for 48 hours, you win. Winning entails the same promise of a free pass at Jake, but you’re not as creative as he is at dominance.

You never imagined that you’d call a jungle island your home someday. You fantasized plenty when you were a kid about visiting Jake here, but living here, no. To be fair, you could never manage to picture yourself reaching adulthood, either. And this isn’t quite Jake’s island, after the decades and centuries and millenia that have passed. But it’s close enough, and it’s beautiful here. You like your life, and you like the island and the landscape. You’ve spent plenty of time exploring, mostly with Jake but sometimes on your own as well. There’s no risk that you’ll get lost. Stealth isn’t quite natural to you, but you can manage.

Chill the fuck out, Strider.

The river is probably another fifteen minutes away, walking. That will give you a bit over an hour and a half to get as far up to the volcano as you can. The island’s not enormous. You can get most of the way there. If Jake’s smart, and he is, he’ll start off by using the vantage point of the house to look around with some binoculars. You don’t think he’d be able to pick you out from such a distance, but you’ll limit your time spent exposed out on the mountainside as much as possible, just to play it safe.

This is why you wore dark brown clothes. Not your best color, but you also won’t give a shit if you tear them or bleed on them or anything. Can’t do too much about the pale beacon of your hair, though. Or face. Short of smearing mud on both, and you think you’ll put that off for now.

There’s no point of being on high alert yet, so you tune out your surroundings for the time being. You run through your sylladex with half your brain, a quick soothing gesture to be sure everything’s still neatly in place where you left it. Your path to the river is uneventful, besides the occasional buzz of insects you have to bat away, and one time that you trip over a fallen branch and nearly sprawl on your face. Nice going. You eye the scuff you left on the branch with irritation. Jake’s good at spotting things like that, any signs of large animals being nearby.

Besides your moment of embarrassing clumsiness, you make it to the river without fuss. Your shoes and socks go into the free spot in your sylladex, and your pants get rolled up to above your knees. The river’s not deep enough to swim in, which is a disadvantage. You’re very fast underwater, but wading will have to do.

Your first steps into the shallows are very cautious. You’re counting on the water washing away any obvious signs of which direction you chose, but Jake will look for disturbances of any kind. Carefully, slowly, you move between smooth, flat stones and pebbles, keeping your feet away from the muddy banks. You test every rock before you step on it for slipperiness. By the time you think you’ve gone far enough to walk faster, the clock on your shades tells you the first forty minutes of your trek have passed.

Resisting the impulse to shove your hands into your pockets to project an aura that is significantly more laid back than you feel right now, you pick up the pace, walking uphill against the stream. From time to time between a gap in the trees you see the volcano clearly ahead. It’s helpful. Keep your eyes on the goal and all that. God, your brain will not shut the fuck up with its nervous chattering.

Your journey upriver remains uneventful, and slowly your thoughts calm. The river helps. It’s cool on your feet, but not cold. There are birds chirping in the trees, more of them, the quieter you make your passage. Everything is invitingly lush and green. On any other day it would be perfect weather to spend with Jake. Eat lunch outside in the sunshine, go for a hike, grind off on him while pushed up against a tree. Take a nap, be lazy fucks instead of working on any of your various projects.

But no. You let yourself get talked into acting out a really elaborate power-trip fantasy. You vengefully kill a mosquito that tries to make a meal from your arm. The things you do for Jake when he gets that speculative gleam in his eyes that means he’s cooking up some dumb shit that you’re inevitably going to get wrapped up in.

...Not that you’ve ever ended up minding yet.

You fall into the mindlessness of physical exertion as you continue to push upstream. You know from repeated experience that a few bends in the river away is a waterfall. Generally, this is never a problem, seeing as you are literally a god and can do whatever the fuck you want. Specifically, fly. But no flying allowed, because if you give Jake an inch he’ll take as many miles as he decides he wants. Enough miles to wrap around the fucking planet. End up right back where he started.

Right. The waterfall. You can hear it, the relentless crashing. You’ll have to get around it another way. It’s not ridiculously tall but the top of the cliff is over your head. You and Jake have a rope swing here, where the pool of water is deep enough to swim in. If you climb up it into the tree, you think you might be able to get up over the cliff.

When the waterfall comes into view you wade out of the shallows of the river into the grove of rainbow eucalyptus. Your rope swing is just where you remember it being, attached to a tree near the cliffside. You experimentally give the rope a few tugs, then grip tightly to put your full weight on it to test its durability. It holds. The spray from the waterfall is dampening you and you brush a few loose strands of hair out of your eyes.

Barefoot is probably better for climbing, so you get right to it. You reach up, grab hold, bring your knees up, and hook the rope over one of your feet so you can press up to standing. The tree branch holds firm, and you repeat, shimmying up the rope bit by bit until you can reach up and hook an arm over the branch. The next part is a little nerve-wracking, but after a dizzying moment of being braced over empty air, you manage to pull yourself up from the rope into the tree.

From here it’s easier, though the tree’s bark is slick in texture and also damp from the waterfall. You shift between a few branches, keeping your footing by virtue of quick reflexes and a childhood spent climbing wet metal. The branch that gets you over the cliff bends a little under your weight, and you clench your jaw as you ease out along it. If you fuck this up you’re allowed to fly, you remind yourself, and gather your legs into a crouch to leap out towards the bank of the river.

Your stomach drops at the feeling of falling but then you land with a splash, half on the mud and half in the water. The current nearly unbalances you in the direction of the cliff’s edge but you throw yourself forward and stagger to safety.

Fuck. All right. That went pretty well, other than the deep footprints you just left. Don’t stop to let your heart rate go down, time’s running out. You leave more tracks along the bank until you’re far enough from the waterfall that you feel safe stepping back into the stream.

Hey, you’re over halfway to the entrance to the lava tubes. That’s the good news. The bad news is that you only have thirty minutes left before Jake starts out after you. You feel very exposed just slogging forward through the water. Not too much farther, you remind yourself. Then you’ll be underground, in a network of caves perfect for hiding in. It’ll be cool and dark and you can ensconce yourself off in some corner and start going over the next possibilities in your plan.

Twenty-five minutes remaining. The landscape is beginning to change around you as you shift from the dense center of the jungle to the more open expanse at the base of the volcano. You chug some water from a bottle in your sylladex. It’s getting hotter, particularly now that you’re leaving behind the shady trees. You’re tempted to splash water from the river on yourself to cool off, but know it would be a bad idea. It’s always colder than you expect underground.

Twenty minutes. The river begins from a spring up near the base of the volcano. The water is growing cooler under your feet, despite the hot sun. Up ahead it will veer off to the south side of the mountain. One of the entrances to the lava tubes is relatively nearby, a little lower and to the north of the spring.

There are several ways to get into the caves. The tunnel you’ve chosen is the one with the most exits, particularly if you’re up for a little creativity. On the far side of the volcano is another cave that doesn’t really lead anywhere. This one has a main branch that leads into the mountain before meeting another offshoot, the main path of which leads out pretty straightforwardly to the ocean.

The offshoot has two other exits. If you have a rope and don’t mind the risk of getting a little wet, there’s a path that goes down. One time at low tide you and Jake sat on the wet sand at the base of the cave for so long that the tide turned around and started to come back in, leading to the both of you getting soaked when you had to swim over to a drier stretch of beach. The final way out requires someone who doesn’t have a trace of claustrophobia in them to get through, but once you do wriggle through it, you end up on a cliff overlooking the waves. Jake dared you to jump into the water from there on his birthday last year. He complained for the rest of the day that you tasted like salt when he kissed you.

Ten minutes. It’s been a long, long time since there was a lava flow through here. There’s no fucking way you would go into these caves otherwise. Even knowing this, there’s a limit to how deep you’re willing to venture before you start remembering all the shitty movies Jake has made you watch where the protagonists deal with a cave-in. Like the fucking old earth movie Journey to the Center of the Earth where the girl and the guy and his, what, nephew? You forget because you tried so hard to tune it out. Anyway, they had to escape before the magma boiled them to death.

You hated that fucking movie.

Five minutes. The stream peels off to the side like you remember and you begrudgingly leave it behind. You sit on a rock to dry your feet before pulling your shoes and socks back on. Resuming your careful march, you pick through the undergrowth towards the cave. A nervous thrill goes down your spine when the clock finally ticks down. Jake’s started.

Resisting the urge to pick up the pace, which would inevitably lead you to trampling the delicate plants around you, you grit your teeth and resolutely stay on track towards your goal. It would take Jake the same amount of time to follow your exact trail, and you did your best not to leave him clues. Even if he magically knows your exact location — and if he does, he’s cheating, you triple-checked everything you have with you for tracking devices — it would still take him a while to catch up. You can’t take your sweet time, but you don’t have to rush.

Still, the open expanse of the volcano makes you nervous. You feel very exposed as you leave the treeline behind and start to crunch over the dirt and rocks. You’re fine, you tell yourself. The ground is rough enough that it won’t be obviously disturbed unless you skid. Jake is far off, and you’re about to be tucked away and hidden in the dark.

You loop around some boulders and clamber over some rocks and beat back the tingle of prey-fear until you finally find the cave entrance. There’s a minute where you get confused and think you passed it, somehow, but then you get your bearings again and the dark hole in the earth looms suddenly in front of you. To get into it, you have to climb down a ladder you and Jake built specifically for this purpose. There used to be a rope until the damp underground made it rot and snap under your weight, years ago. You weren’t hurt, just badly startled, and it was a bit of a trick to convince Jake that no, you really were fine to go on yourself until you got to an exit and could come back to meet up with him when you were aboveground again.

The ladder rungs are much sturdier underfoot, and you’re grateful for that.

As you descend you feel the cold rise up to meet you. The cool heaviness of the air in the cave wraps around you bit by bit until you have both feet on the cave floor. You decaptchalogue your flashlight and jacket. Unroll your pant cuffs. Everything past where the sunlight can reach is shrouded in increasing darkness, and it’s not too many paces away when everything is black as tar around you.

You allow yourself to take one quick glance back toward daylight before you switch on your flashlight and press forward.

Traversing a cave requires a lot of concentration. The ground is uneven, sometimes covered in unsteady rocks. It’s hard to know where the ceiling is, or when it’ll dip down suddenly. The first stretch of the cave you remember well enough. Around the first bend the height decreases sharply, forcing you to drop to a crouch as you walk. You keep your free hand up by your face to keep from hitting the ceiling and your eyes fixed on the sandy ground, looking for anything that could cause you to trip. Everything beyond your flashlight beam is pitch black, darker than any dark night, and you shine it around to check that the walls are where you think they are.

This cramped space opens up suddenly into a large, rocky-floored cavern and you straighten from your crouch carefully. If memory continues to serve, the best path forward is to start in the center and then shift to hug the left wall. The rockpile is sturdier on that side. There’s nothing like the risk of stepping wrong and breaking your leg to make you aware of your footing. And you don’t have anyone with you to bail you out if you get injured.

You brought Jane and Roxy down here once. Jane thought it was pretty fun, but cold. Roxy got freaked out by the impenetrable darkness and the imaginary weight of the mountain pressing down around her. You brought her back to the surface, feeling bad for spooking her like that. Once in the sunlight again she was fine, just shuddered and swore she’d never try spelunking again. You don’t have her problem, which is good. You don’t need to add any reasons to be on edge. Sure, the way how without your flashlight you can see absolutely fucking nothing is kind of creepy, but it’s kind of cool, too. It’s not often you’re in a place completely devoid of any kind of light.

One rock starts to come loose under your right foot and you freeze, leaning back from it. After a moment, it settles into just teetering back and forth, and you move over it quickly, picking your way forward until the rocks start to level out some more.

The quiet does start to get to you eventually, with nothing except the occasional distant drip and your footsteps to disturb it. You dislike listening to your own breathing, find yourself getting self-conscious of the way your breath hitches and grows heavier when the ground slopes upwards.

When you trip and a jolt of adrenaline leaves you shaky because you were paying more attention to your breathing than your surroundings, you make yourself talk under your breath to yourself, anything to fill the space between your thoughts and the quiet. You tell yourself to pay attention, mutter swear words when you nearly bump the ceiling and have to hunch over, rap quietly when you cross through a more open space, and curse Jake for getting you to think this would be kinky funtimes and not solo adventures through the underdark. Spelunking is more fun with a partner.

The cold makes your fingers grow stiff and you hastily pull a pair of gloves out of your sylladex and tuck your hands into your armpits to warm them up. You need to not get chilled down here. If you get cold you don’t have a good way to warm back up short of returning to the surface. And being cold makes your brain foggy, which increases the risk that you’ll make a preventable mistake.

Eventually you come to the fork in the path, one route leading back up to the surface, another going deeper underground. You turn towards the latter path and descend a few yards down it. There’s a drop-off where it plunges abruptly about four feet down, and you ensconce yourself above it, settling against the cold wall with your knees bent up toward your chest. You sigh, shift a few rocks around so you can sit comfortably without getting jabbed in the ass, and let yourself relax for a moment.

Part one of your plan has been successfully executed. You decompress for a few minutes, eat a snack and drink some water. Batteries drain quickly in caves from the cold so once you’re settled you turn the flashlight off. The darkness presses in immediately and you blink afterimages out of your eyes. Automatically you strain for any flicker of light or movement, but see nothing.

It’s fine at first, once you stop trying to look around, but after a minute it starts to become unsettling. Anything could be in here with you. Nothing is, because you’d hear it moving around, but knowing this doesn’t shake the feeling that something could be watching. You switch the flashlight back on and shine it around, squinting through the sudden brightness. An outcropping of rock casts a strange shadow that makes you flinch. With a sigh you turn the light back off and shut your eyes.

You’re glad nobody’s here to witness you losing your cool. You can be honest with yourself: the darkness is reminding you of the sky over Derse. When you’d look up at it, though you tried to do that as rarely as possible, the inky blackness would slowly start to twitch and writhe with the shapes of monstrous nightmares.

Keeping your eyes shut tight, you remind yourself that the game is over. You have only one waking consciousness. This is a universe and reality separate from the Outer Rim. You deliberately fill your mind with thoughts of anything other than the game.

The next part of your plan is to wait down here as long as you can. If Jake comes down here, you’ll hear him from a ways off, even if he’s deliberately being quiet. There’s enough places to hide that you think you can get around him and either slip out or trick him into thinking you’re not down here. That’s the benefit of the darkness. It gives you an edge to outwit him with. If you’re lucky, Jake won’t search here yet. If you’re not, it’ll at least slow him down to have to painstakingly search the shadows.

If you end up not being able to tolerate staying down here too long, well, it’s good to keep moving. And if Jake knows you’ve been down here he won’t expect you to come back, so you might be able to return to spend the night. You focus on your plan, on the logistics of it, ideas you have for where you might hide in the jungle, what paths you could take. It helps ease the press of the shadows. You rest your head against your forearms and let yourself stay tucked up in your mind.

You did not intend to fall asleep. Stress can do that to you, knock you back a step so that a nap becomes the surest thing to rejuvenate you. You startle awake all at once, heart pounding in your ears, rough ground shifting under your feet. Your neck aches from being held at an awkward angle for so long, and you raise a hand to rub it.

In the distance, you hear something move.

Down the tunnel you haven’t approached yet, rocks go skidding as if underfoot. Your breath catches in your throat and you strain to hear over your heartbeat. There’s silence, then the distinct sound of footsteps crunching over gravelly ground.

God, fuck, do you have time to hide yourself behind the drop in the tunnel? You’ll make sound when you stand, and more sound when you drop over the edge. You’re already half-tucked away against the uneven wall, but if Jake’s close — but is he listening as intently as you are, he must be concentrating on his footing, right? Maybe you can —

The sound of a whole bunch of rocks coming dislodged reaches your ears, and Jake’s voice distinctly hisses, “Shitknickers.” Despite yourself, you waste a moment worrying that he fell, and then it’s too late to move. The first glimmer of a flashlight beam flashes through the cave.

You pull the hood of your jacket over your head and turn away from the light, make yourself as small as possible and press yourself against the wall. One hand goes over your mouth to stifle your breathing, and you make yourself inhale and exhale as slowly and silently as you can. Your outermost foot slips from where it was bracing you and you cringe at the sound it makes. You tuck it back against you and force yourself not to close your eyes.

Jake approaches slowly. His footsteps stop somewhere nearby, at the entrance to this cave, maybe. The flashlight scans across the cave, sweeping from close to him to near you. He scans the other wall, then your wall. The edge of his flashlight nearly catches your boot, fuck fuck shit, but sweeps away. Jake takes a few steps closer to shine the light down the tunnel, and there’s no way he won’t see you but it would be so humiliating to be found so quickly, fuck.

He sighs, the noise loud against the silence, and you listen in frozen silence as his footsteps retreat and head briskly down the other path. The light fades.

...No way. He didn’t see you. Holy shit. There’s no way. How could he not have seen you? You stay still and hidden against the wall, forcing yourself to wait five minutes, ears straining. At ten minutes you can’t stay still another second and switch your own flashlight back on.

You can’t stay here. You can’t make yourself stay here. The adrenaline is still pumping through you and you have to move. Intellectually you know that staying put might be the best bet, but all of your senses won’t stop shrieking that this area is now dangerous. You head down the tunnel that Jake originally came down, the one that leads to the sea. You’ll take the exit that dumps you out on the cliff, though it’s the longest route. From there you can… circle back behind the volcano, maybe, find one of the shallower caves around the back. No, if you do that and Jake finds you again you’ll be completely penned in, and the tides will fuck up your options. Maybe you can find a way back into the jungle? You just needs some air, you need to be moving in the opposite direction as Jake is.

Your path back up to the surface is convoluted. To get to the offshoot that takes you where you want to go, you have to clamber up a sheer rock wall and then wiggle on your stomach to pop through to a larger tunnel. At one point when you have to crawl, you misjudge the height of the ceiling and scrape your head. You can’t tell if it’s bleeding or not.

The adrenaline rush has clearly done you no favors when it comes to your higher thinking capabilities. You try to take more care as you trek through the twisting tunnel. Underground you have no sense of direction beyond that you know where you’re going to end up. You have no idea which cardinal direction you’re facing. At least your flashlight isn’t dimming yet.

You fumble through the next few sections of the path until you gain your nerve back and proceed with a little more finesse. By the time you finally reach the last segment of the cave it feels like you’ve been making your way out for hours, even if rationally you know it wasn’t even double the length of time it took you to get into the caves.

The last part is the hardest, of course. You lay on your stomach and worm your way through. Your clothes will be a little worse for wear, but there are no further mishaps and you finally pop out underneath the exit. It’s above you, necessitating another climb. You take a second to put away your flashlight and stretch your hands, reveling in the sunlight that now illuminates your vicinity.

Then, you reach up, get a firm grip on the rim of the gap in the rock, and hoist yourself up, feet scrabbling at the wall until you can pull yourself up, brace on your elbows, and wriggle the rest of the way to freedom.

You get one second to lay on the dirt and relish the warmth and moving air.

“Glad I called that one right,” Jake says cheerfully, and then he’s on you, rolling you over onto your back and sitting on your stomach. He’s heavy and unexpected, grabbing your hands before you can react with more than a surprised squawk. You try to buck him off but he moves with you and digs his nails into your wrists sharply.

“I mean, really,” he continues, unruffled. “The lava tubes, that was terribly predictable. It was a snap to find you. The only part I had to gamble on was where you’d be surfacing.”

“Fuck you—” You try to push him off again. “Get off!”

“I do intend to,” Jake says with his usual horrible casualness. He forces your wrists together and wraps one hand around them and while you struggle to pull free, he pries your mouth open with the other. His fingers are shoved against your tongue, graceless and rough. You bite down immediately.

Jake yanks on your wrists hard, pulling them over your head and jarring your shoulders. You open your jaw without thinking and try to pull away. He slaps you hard and hooks his fingers over your bottom teeth to drag you back to facing him.

“The more you fight, the more I have to hurt you,” Jake says, deadly sharp. “Do you really want to force me to hurt you?” He presses his fingers back in, sliding so immediately deep you gag. His dick is hard against your stomach.

You don’t bite this time, but you don’t make it fun for him, either. He thrusts his fingers in and out of your mouth, getting them wet, then pulls them out to wipe your saliva across your cheek.

“Are you going to be good?” he asks you, rubbing his thumb over your bottom lip, eyes intent.

You want to respond with some appropriately virulent denial, but it’s very hard to think when Jake is on you. You turn your face to the side again.

Jake sighs, put-upon, and his hand disappears from your face. You hear him yank his zipper down a second later and fight against the automatic heat that rises in your face. Fuck, then he grabs you with both hands again and hauls you with him, away from the cave, onto your front. You won’t make it easy for him, you won’t. You stay limp as a ragdoll and make him drag you. He pulls you up roughly, sending a jolt of pain through your shoulders. He pushes you back and your knees bend — fuck. You’re left kneeling at his feet as easily as if you’d obediently dropped there yourself.

“I won’t,” you say, trying to lean back. He pulls your hands up higher and you twist, yanking. “Let go, I won’t do it.”

“Of course you will,” Jake says. “You’ll do everything I tell you to do, and you’ll thank me for it by the end. Just you watch.” He forces your hands together again and frees a hand to squeeze your jaw until you’re forced to open up. “Bite again and it’ll be more than a little love tap you get,” he says. He pushes his hips forward until his dick rubs across your face, catching on your nose and then sliding up your cheek. You shut your eyes reflexively, defensively, and make one last attempt at pulling away. No dice.

“Be good,” Jake says, and presses his dick into your mouth. Your jaw opens farther automatically in response to the pressure and he thrusts in without giving you so much as a chance to register the stretch to your jaw muscles. You suck in a breath through your nose desperately as he pulls back. When he thrusts in next he goes deeper, and deeper on the next until he hits your throat. You gag again and he holds himself there until you fight him.

“Are you trying to make me puke?” you gasp when he pulls out.

“Depends,” he says. “I suppose you might if you don’t do a good job.”

“How would that—” be my fault, you don’t finish, when he grabs your jaw again and rocks back in. Though you hate to make it easier for him, and he’d have brought it on himself if you did hurl on his dick from over-enthused facefucking, you let your mouth go lax and open for him to use.

And fuck if he doesn’t use it. He hammers into your mouth, groaning out a variety of filthy explicatives and obnoxious nonsense. You let him, eyes falling half-lidded and moaning when you taste bitter precum. You’re hard. There’s no point in pretending you aren’t. Jake would see it in an instant if he looked down at your lap. The manhandling mixed with the familiar ache in your jaw pushes all your buttons, like it or not. Jake lets up on your arms some, letting your elbows bend.

“There,” he says, panting. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” He pulls out and rubs the head of his dick over your lips. You stick your tongue out to try and entice him back in. He laughs. “Are you ready to be good, then? Is that what you’re trying to convey down there?”

You nod. He smiles for you, dimples and buck teeth on display. His grip loosens further on your wrists, testing. When you don’t fight, he lets one hand go. It drops to your lap.

“Lovely,” he says. Your other hand goes to your knee and you lean forward to slide his dick into your mouth. Jake groans. Pleased, you take him deeper and suck with an audible slurp. Jake starts to rock his hips in little motions and you encourage it, laving your tongue against the underside of his dick until he’s thrusting firmly, no longer quite so rough but still erring on the side of uncomfortable.

You let him fuck your mouth until you know he’s close from the roughness of his voice and the urgency in his motions. He’s petting your face with one hand, moaning words about how good you feel, how warm, how close he is. You breathe in deeply through your nose, bring your hands up, and shove him back as hard as you can.

Jake staggers back, discombobulated and taken off-guard, and you jump to your feet. Without pausing to look or think you sprint for the edge of the cliff and dive deep down into the sea. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: this fic is based around the concept of dirk and jake acting out an extended scene where dirk hides on jake's island and jake hunts him down. there is a very strong predator/prey theme throughout. this chapter specifically contains rough oral sex.


	2. to the left now, boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings in endnotes

You sit on the edge of the cliffs, watching the ocean shift and pull below you. Some ways off, you see Dirk surface between one swell and the next, a little blip of motion, like a seabird surfacing from a dive. He disappears again below the water.

Dirk is at home in the water in a way that you could never match. He can outswim you in any race, and hold his breath longer, too. You’d never catch up to him if you dove after him. No, this way, you can see where he eventually lands, get a sense of where to begin your search all over again.

You sigh and tighten your fist on the next pull of your dick. So, all right, you let yourself get cocky this time. In your defense, after following such a clear trail, it seems only natural that you might consider your win neatly folded up in the bag. But no, of course not. Dirk is a slippery fish that you should’ve known would be difficult to reel in.

Next time you’ll bind his hands together. Can’t swim if you can’t move your arms separately, buddy-o! Maybe it’s better this way, that he escaped once. There’s lots of things you thought about doing to him, and now you can try something else.

Fuck him for looking so good when he’s on his knees, though, it’s honestly the most unfair thing you’ve ever witnessed, the way he stares up at you. Completely irresistible. No wonder he managed to bamboozle you so well. It’s hard to think at full capacity when you’ve got your pecker pressed as far into his mouth as it can go.

And he got you right on the edge of climax, when you most tend to loosen the reins, so to speak. He knows you far too well. Your release, when it trickles over your hand, is not very satisfying at all. Damn him.

You wipe your hand off half-heartedly on the rock beside you and consider. It’s afternoon. Sooner rather than later, the sun will set. You could let Dirk get ahead of you, let him have more time to give you a proper show. You’ll get a good night’s sleep, keep him on edge all night wondering if you’re about to pop out from behind a bush. That sounds unsporting, though. And by the time you make it back down the side of the volcano and trudge over to wherever he decides to emerge — ah, there he is. Off in the distance the shape of your boyfriend pulls himself out of the water and rapidly moves across the sand to the treeline. You lean back on your hands and watch him scurry to the safety of the jungle.

Relative safety.

Right. Deciding. If you follow him right now, he’ll still be ahead of you. Or you can continue to let him go, for however long you can stand before you have to have your hands on him again.

You’ll give him a little while. Take a rest, a nap if you can manage it. You’ve spooked him enough that now he’ll go all-out. If you’re more rested than him it’ll be to your benefit.

You haul yourself up to standing, tuck yourself away and zip back up, then set a brisk pace down toward the jungle. A late afternoon nap sound fantastic, actually. It’s perfectly warm and sunny out, just the faintest hint of a light sea breeze. The best weather for a kip in the shade.

Then, this evening, you’ll start playing again.

You hope Dirk’s preparing something good. He likes his plans neatly lined up and orderly. You like doing your best to skip right around them. Hell, you hope he does manage something to befuddle you or slow you down. All the more fun for you, then, when you catch him in the end and make him regret thinking he could ever run from you.

When you reach a spot that looks good for a rest you collapse under the shade of a papaya tree. You shove your glasses gracelessly into your hair and drape an arm over your eyes. Dirk leaves footprints that you’re very familiar with. You know the kinds of places he prefers to hide in. You’ve explored every inch of this island together, side by side. Wherever he goes, you know you can follow.

You doze off thinking over ideas of what you can do when you catch him, ways you can use the small arsenal of tools you’ve brought with you. This is going to be very fun.

 

* * *

 

You rouse as the sun is starting its descent to the horizon, the trees casting lengthier shadows towards the volcano. This is a good time to start. There’ll still be enough light for a while. You stretch to shake off the remaining lethargy that tries to cling to your bones and set off down to the beach. The sea glitters darkly to your right, sunlight stretching across the crashing waves. Good thing it's warm — you wouldn't like to think that Dirk might catch cold from his unplanned dip.

The stale signs of Dirk’s presence are still clear as day when you find them, footprints heavy on the wet sand, and a long dragging mark where he must've stumbled. They lead, as you already knew, directly into the jungle. You follow them up the beach to the patchy beginnings of trees. Your feet dig into the hot, dry sand, leaving a second set of footprints beside Dirk’s. It would almost look like the two of you entered the jungle side by side, if it weren't for the air of panicked flight to Dirk’ tracks.

Not too far in, there’s a patch of disturbed earth that looks like he might have knelt down and dug up some soil with his hands. You’re… not totally sure what this is about. Maybe he was testing how easy it was to dig? Or using the dirt to help disguise himself? That seems like a more likely option.

You follow the path of Dirk’s footprints from here up, the ground slowly progressing to being more soil than sand. The ocean gets left behind you as the dense jungle swallows you. Much of the undergrowth is thick. It’s easier to track Dirk by the spots of crushed foliage than by footprints. He has to step somewhere, and he doesn’t have the skill to move tracelessly unless he goes very slowly, which he was not doing.

In contrast, you’re a bit of a dab hand at moving quickly but quietly. You hardly so much as disturb the birds as you pick your way between the trees. If Dirk is moving nearby, or was recently moving, you’ll be able to tell by the hush and change in the sound of bird calls.

It’s one of the few fringe benefits of needing to draw as little attention to yourself as possible whenever you left the sanctuary of your room, when you were little. And of needing to know what’s been nearby, and how long ago. There’s a fast learning curve when your life is on the line.

And then, later, you had Dirk’s robot with you. Following you every time you ventured outdoors, silent and watchful. Sometimes you’re sad that your first companion isn’t with you anymore, but mostly you’re glad to have a friend who talks back, explores alongside you, and doesn’t always fucking win when you wrestle.

He’s out here, somewhere. You’ll find him.

His tracks take circuitous routes. They take sharp turns, loop backwards around trees in curves designed to make you look past them. They don’t stump you for long after the first time you puzzled for a moment and then realized he’d followed the trunk of a tree around until he was pointing an entirely different direction. At one point his tracks come to an abrupt end. There’s no sign that he climbed a tree, and you think there would be at least _something_ , some small scrape, no matter how good a climber Dirk is.

You finally retrace your footsteps and realize he must have doubled back. There is a tree with visible twisting roots that he could have walked across to disguise his change in direction. You spend another good ten minutes trying to pinpoint where his trail starts up again.

 _He’s doing better_ , you think to yourself. It was partly luck that let you find Dirk so easily the first time. You’d taken a guess, at the river, that he’d head up rather than down towards the ocean, and then bit by bit the few signs he left confirmed that you’d guessed correctly. From there it wasn’t too hard to realize he might have thought to hide down in the caves, and one thing led to another until you found a funny shadow that you nearly overlooked except for your instincts telling you to look again.

The real bet was on where Dirk would pop out again, and if you’d spooked him enough to send him fleeing for the surface at all. It does help to know him so well.

Night continues to fall, dusk enveloping you faster under the already shadowy trees. Rather than waste your time squinting you pop out your trusty old flashlight again, using the remaining sunlight to adjust to tracking by flashlight beam. Sure, having it on gives away your presence, but you need to see, and startling him with it sounds just a little bit amusing. You don’t mind advertising your location if it gives you the chance to scare Dirk into flight.

You’re feeling pretty good about your progress, all things considered. Despite Dirk’s efforts to throw you off, you’re still following along without much trouble — and in half-light, no less! He’s still a few hours ahead of you, but eventually he’ll pick a destination, you think, and if you can guess where then you have a better chance at catching up. And he sleeps much better than he used to, so he’s not accustomed to staying up all night anymore. He’ll recognize that he needs sleep in order to keep his wits about him, and once he’s stationary… well. Sneaking up while he snoozes would be a dandy way to give him a good jolt of adrenaline.

Just as you’re getting complacent, of course, your foot catches on something and you go down in a mess of flailing limbs. You lie on the ground for a minute, confirming that you’re still intact, just took a tumble. When you sit up and retrieve the flashlight from where you’d dropped it, you find a nearly-invisible tripline stretching between the two trees you’d just walked through.

You grudgingly give Dirk credit for throwing something beyond twisty footprints into the mix, and pick yourself back up. After a moment’s debate you leave the wire where it is, on the off-chance that Dirk comes back through here having forgotten where exactly he left it.

You find the next two tripwires by double-checking for any glint of your flashlight beam against metal and proceeding with extraordinary caution. The fourth wire gets you again, but you manage to just stumble over it and drop to your knees instead of all the way down. You stand, take two steps, and immediately trip over another. This time you do hit the ground, and manage to smack yourself in the face with the flashlight to boot. You rub your stinging jaw with growing irritation. All right, so Dirk’s not completely useless at slowing you down, fine. You can do better, too.

With the assistance of a long stick to wave around at ankle-height, you start to make you way forward again. After another three wires (which fail to make you fall, thank you very much), you stop finding any. It’s hard to let your guard down about it, but when the minutes continue to pile up into over half an hour, you slowly drop the paranoia.

It’s completely dark out, and has been for some time. The sound of a jungle at night is very different than by day. The bugs come out in full chorus, providing a pleasant ambiance of cicadas and crickets. Dirk hated the way they’d chirp at night when you first dragged him out to your island, but he grew used to them quickly. As a child you despised night on the island. The only things worse than the daytime monsters were the nocturnal ones, great bloodthirsty felines and other beasts. There’s no danger here anymore. It’s a small delight to be able to wander as freely as you please without worrying about mortal peril.

You’re not totally sure how far you’ve come, what with all of the twists and turns Dirk took to try to throw you off. Pretty far, though, you think. If you had to make a guess you’d say you’ve wound your way further east of the volcano but also deeper into the jungle. Near the center of the island, maybe? How far can Dirk be planning on going?

You spend another long stretch of time just dutifully plodding along, following Dirk’s tracks. They’re getting less circuitous now, with fewer maneuvers to try to throw you off. This is not to say that they’re straightforward to follow now, because they most certainly are not, and he’s still light footed enough that you have to scan carefully for the signs of disturbance. But, still. There is a little less trick to his path. It starts to put you on edge, make you more alert. Maybe he just got tired, or maybe he has something planned.

Eventually you come to an area that you recognize very well. There’s a whole collection of low hanging branches covered in vines on the far side of a clearing that, combined with the thick undergrowth, makes a very good hiding spot. You… wonder. Dirk’s tracks led you right here. You hesitate, still back a few paces, keeping your flashlight beam pointed low. The tracks in front of you don’t deviate. Hell, there’s even some plain old footprints leading you towards the little den. Keeping your light dim and directed away, your senses prickling and straining to listen, you slowly advance into the clearing.

A quiet creak is your only warning before Dirk lands on the ground in a blur of motion. Before you can do more than startle and lock eyes with him, he takes off running. You’re after him without a thought, and he shifts into a flash-step that darts him forward as far as he can get before the trees are in the way. You chase him, feet pounding against the dirt, and he doesn’t have such a speed advantage with so many obstacles in the way—

You step on something and it goes _snap_ under your foot. You have just enough time to think _oh shit_ before you’re hoisted into the air.

“Fuck — Strider!” you yell, hopelessly entangled in a net. The flashlight slips between the netting and lands on ground below.

You hear Dirk laugh, and the sound of his footsteps grows fainter the farther away he gets.

The trap must have been set up to be tripped under pressure, so he flashstepped across it. In your sylladex you have a knife. You pull it out and fumble it, nearly dropping it after the flashlight. You struggle and swear as you saw at the net, annoyance and haste making you clumsy. If you can get down you can try to catch up. He’s not so far yet. You hack at the net until it starts to give way and then cut at the sides of the hole you made until you can wiggle through. You recaptchalogue the knife and drop to the ground in an ungainly heap. Snatching up your flashlight again, you give chase.

You don’t bother tracking him — you know what direction he went. You just run, chasing the distant sounds of his movements. If you can just outrun him, it won’t be easy but if you give it your all, you have a chance. You jump over a fallen log and keep running.

Your breath comes harsher in your ears with the strain, but your blood is alight, boiling. He’s so close. You want to catch him so badly, wrestle him flat and bite him and make him stay put. Up ahead you hear him swear, and over the sound of your breathing and heartbeat you hear the sound of running water. The river! You must be near it.

Branches catch at you as you run and you just bat them out of your face without pausing. He’s so near you can practically taste it. You come around a cluster of trees into the open and he’s there, waiting, moonlight glinting off his hair.

There’s no stopping. You slam into him full-force, sending both of you crashing to the ground. He shouts and claws at you, fighting back as you try to press him flat. You shove an elbow into his sternum and he knees you in the side, and you roll, pulling him with you. He lands hard on your stomach and tries to scramble backwards. Reaching up, you grab his collar and yank him back down. He strikes you in the chest with both fists, so hard that you release him.

Dirk shoves off of you and you rear up, flip over onto your knees to tackle him. You catch him around the waist and try to pull him down again with a grunt of effort. He snarls back and resists, grabs your arm and digs his nails in so hard he might draw blood. You push him forward and he twists, drags you with him, gets a handful of your hair and yanks you sideways. Eyes blurring from the pain, you punch him, catching him in the stomach. He releases you with a sharp gasp.

You scramble far enough forward to plant a knee on his chest and snatch at his face. He tries to bite you and you hit him on the mouth, a fumbling glancing blow. He grabs your wrist, tries to bite you again, and you pull both your hands back.

Immediately taking advantage, Dirk pushes himself up to sitting and tries to flip you onto your back. You resist. He pulls you to the side until you collapse, but you get a grip on him and roll, taking him over you and then you on top of him, but Dirk uses the momentum to keep rolling you, over onto your back and then up again and then he gets a knee up and flings you off of him.

You reach to try and bring him with you but there’s a long, horrible, weightless moment and you hit the water.

It’s cold and goes up your nose when you cry out in shock. You fight against the current that tries to lift you and drag you with it. For several long, frantic moments you struggle until your head breaks the water and you get your knees under you. You gasp for air, spluttering when the water hits your face again, and try to stand. Half-walking, half-staggering, you stumble to the bank. You take a moment to resettle your glasses on your face and scrub the water out of your vision and then haul yourself up, flopping onto solid ground again with a waterlogged _splat_. You look around.

The night is dead silent, and Dirk has vanished.

You stand, slowly, and pivot on a heel to look all around. Nothing. Slowly you retrieve your flashlight from where you’d dropped it and shine it around, in case he’s hiding behind a tree or something. There’s no sign of him. You weren’t in the water that long, were you? How far could he have gotten? Maybe he’s hiding just out of sight. You pick a random spot and take a few steps into the jungle, peering around. Just trees.

From above you, you hear the slightest rustle. You go still and listen. The air is very quiet. Quiet in an anticipatory, charged sort of way. You are utterly certain all of a sudden that if you shine your light up you’ll find Dirk perched in the tree.

If you climb, he could kick you. One or either of you could fall, which breaks the point of the game, you think. You don’t want that. You could try to spook him down, but…

Ugh, you’re still soaked to the bone. There’s no risk that you’ll be cold, really. The nights here are warm, no matter the season. But it’s hardly pleasant to stand around in wet clothes, particularly wet shoes. It’ll chafe something awful as soon as you try to do anything exciting.

Luckily for you, you brought spare clothes and boots just for an occasion like this! You sit down to unlace your boots and yank them off, then peel your socks off with a grimace. The rest of your clothes follow in short order until you’re completely naked with only the trees as your witness. And Dirk, who is no doubt torn between internally mocking your lack of modesty and admiring the view. Unless he’s huddled in terror and not looking… but you think he’s looking.

All your wet clothes get captchalogued away in one big pile and you pull out a towel and nice, dry clothing. You dry off, scrub some of the water out of your hair, and then get dressed again. The towel gets put away and you sit yourself down against a tree, facing the one you’re pretty sure Dirk is in.

You can play the waiting game.

At first you’re just silent. You turn your flashlight off to let your eyes adjust to the dark and your ears sharpen, keep your head tilted back to point up towards the shadowy shapes of the tree branches. It’s nice to take a break after all the tromping around you’ve done, not to mention your little scrum-turned-impromptu-swim. Restful. Then you get bored with only your thoughts to occupy you.

“Don’t fall asleep up there,” you say. “You’ll fall out and plunge to your untimely death on the forest floor and to be candid that would really put a damper on my night.”

There’s no reply, but you weren’t expecting one.

“Particularly,” you continue, “as I’m expecting to end this night on a positive note. A triumphant note. I’ve been thinking about how I should have you, when I do catch you. By the way, that was clever thinking, you know, when we were up on the cliffs. Catching me off-guard and hobbled by my own shorts. Unfortunately you’ve really only managed to work up my appetite with that little tease.”

You drum your fingers against your knee and listen. Quiet, quiet as a mouse, quiet as a little frightened bird.

“I doubt I’ll have the patience for most of what I’ve been thinking,” you say. “On some level, I’d really just rather bend you over and stuff you full. But then, at the same time, I really should get you back for the blue balls you so graciously left me with. Don’t you think you’ve earned a little punishment after that?”

You doubt he can see it, but you grin up at him. “If you just come down now, I promise to go easier on you, hmm?” You give him a few seconds to think it over. “That’s a deal worth taking, by the way. If you just be good and come on down I’ll even prep you properly before I fuck you.”

The trees shiver and sigh through a gust of wind. Dirk doesn’t come down.

“All right, then.” You settle back more firmly against the tree. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The night creeps back in, chirping insects and burbling river and the soft breath of the wind picking up. You blink at one point and find that you’ve nodded off and make an effort to sit upright. Directing a glance upwards gives you no information on whether Dirk is still there. He could have snuck off while you were drowsing.

 _Eyes open, English_ , you tell yourself firmly, and stare up at the night until your eyes sting from being open too long. You blink, blink again and jerk back upright when you doze off. Your eyes slide shut again.

A crack in the distance wakes you. You rub your eyes, confused, and stretch with a wince. The sky is still pretty dark, but has a distinct shift to it that means you’re heading on forward to morning. You fumble for your flashlight and flick it on for a little additional light, pointing it up to the trees. This confirms what you already suspected from the noise that woke you: Dirk is gone.

You get to your feet, pop the kink out of your neck, and head out towards the source of the noise. The source is lying on the ground not too far off. It’s a broken tree branch. You look up and see where it snapped off. There’s no sign of blood or a brutally impaled boyfriend, so you think he survived it breaking. The trees are very thick all through here. He must’ve snuck away from you by jumping from tree to tree. That’s nervy. You’re impressed.

He must be close, then. You scan the area. This knot of trees is very close together, but not too far off they space up enough that it’s sunny during the day, and light enough to look around in right now. And — okay, yes. That’s the way Dirk headed. You don’t bother to follow quietly. Let him hear you coming.

The undergrowth is annoyingly thick in parts, though. You weave around it, keeping an eye out. “Dirk,” you call. No reply, but you hear what sounds like hurried footfalls nearby. Then it goes quiet again. You step out into a clear patch and look around. It’s light enough that you can see. The tension in the air almost reminds you of fighting alongside Dirk in the game, waiting to pounce or be pounced upon, guns in hand, bracing for a fight. Your guns. That’s… an idea.

Where is he? You turn on your heel slowly, scanning around you. You feel the silence stretch between you like a rope pulled to its limit.

There. In a clump of bushes there’s a shadow that doesn’t quite match in shape. You don’t look directly at it. If you’re a hunter in this scenario… then you should flush him out.

You call your pistols to your hands silently. Both are unnecessary for this. You ready the one in your right hand, keeping it hidden behind the angle of your body. Then you turn, take three steps closer, and fire it one foot over where Dirk’s head would be if he were standing.

Dirk cries out and tries to jump back from his hiding place and you’re on him, tackling him flat before he collect himself. He struggles weakly, still startled, but you get a knee on each of his arms and grab him ‘round the throat.

“Caught you,” you lightly.

He tries to buck you off but you move with him and tighten your grasp. Dirk wheezes and you smile.

“Submit,” you say. “Submit or I choke you.”

Dirk makes a respectable effort to throw you off or free a hand, but you just squeeze again until you can feel how he splutters and tries desperately to gasp for air. You loosen your grip and he goes limp beneath you.

“Good,” you say. “That’s very good. Stay nice and still for me, now.”

You decaptchalogue some rope, two lengths that lay coiled on the ground. Removing your hands from Dirk’s throat with a final warning glare, you take the first length and knot it securely around his left wrist, then do the same with the second rope and his other wrist. Dirk lies below you, not fighting. You slip a finger under each of the ties to check the tightness and then sit back, satisfied.

“We’re going to move, now,” you tell him, and take ahold of the ropes. When you stand and pull him after you, he obediently follows. Oh, good. You don’t think he’s going to try and trick you again this time.

You lead him to a tree with low enough branches for your purposes and lash the free end of one rope around it, around the trunk and above the lowest branch to be sure it won’t slip. Then you take the other rope and walk it out until Dirk is forced to follow. When his arm is outstretched you tie the second rope to another tree, pulling it tight enough that both of Dirk’s arms are held out from his sides. Not so high that it will strain his shoulders to maintain, and not so far apart that it’ll cut off blood circulation, but enough that he’s sure to feel mighty exposed.

He looks at you uncertainly, tracking your movements. You step in close and retrieve your knife. He watches, wide-eyed, as you neatly cut his shirt off and kick it away. Then you remove his shoes and strip his pants off, take it all away until he’s naked and trembling. You take his face between your hands and tug him down just enough that you can kiss his forehead.

“Are you ready for your punishment?” you ask softly.

He bites his lip and nods.

“Aloud, please,” you say.

“Yes,” he says.

You smile. “Good,” you say, releasing him. Then you go to cut yourself a switch.

The area around you is rife with young green plants and adolescent trees. It’s not hard to find a good, thin length of wood for your purposes. You plop yourself down in front of Dirk where he can easily see you and take your time trimming off the errant leaves and buds. Periodically you glance up at him, checking to see how he’s doing. He’s wide-eyed, breath sometimes catching in his throat when you make eye contact. By the time your switch is good and smooth he’s sporting a tempting half-chub. You use your considerable self-restraint to prevent yourself from giving it a nice squeeze and stroke as you stand to duck under the rope and circle around behind him.

Your knife goes back to your sylladex and you bend to kiss the knob of his spine at the top of his back. With your free hand you trace the length of his spine all the way down, measuring exactly where his tailbone ends. When you pull back, he makes a faint, nervous noise, so quiet you barely catch it.

“Hm?” you ask, and press full against his back. “You’re not sure about your punishment after all?” You press one hand to his throat and tip his head back against you far enough that it’ll be a strain. With your other hand you rest the switch casually across the front of his legs. Drag the tip back and forth across the front of his thigh.

“No, no, I,” Dirk says. “Want it.” The vibration of his words echoes through your hand, and you know he can feel the rumble of your laughter against his back even through your clothes.

“Such a good boy,” you croon, stepping back. “You’ll take whatever I do and thank me for it, won’t you? Such a good little slut.” Dirk makes another faint noise, this time a garbled mix of reactions, and you grin. You move to the side until you’re in a good position to strike him from and rest the end of the switch against his ass. “Be as loud as you need,” you add as an afterthought. “There’s nobody around to hear you except me.”

You start off with gentler flicks over the lower halves of his ass cheeks, confirming your aim and giving him a little bit of a chance to warm up before you really strike him. He leans forward and you cluck your tongue reprovingly so he’ll straighten up again. You reward him with a stronger sting, a quick flick of your wrist that lands with a satisfying smack and leaves a light red line.

Dirk gasps out a curse and you smile.

You leave another welt below the first, making two parallel lines. Watching the sensation roll through Dirk is a joy, seeing how he shudders. He stays upright and relaxed for you, ready for the next strike. He’s unbelievably perfect.

Trying to find the best rhythm, you increase the frequency of the stronger stings. Tap-tap-tap-smack, tap-tap-tap-smack. You shift between each of his ass cheeks, making sure they’re paid equal attention. When you lay two hits on him in quick succession he groans, wrists twisting against the rope. His voice is tight and rough from being choked earlier. You love it.

You know the sting so far isn’t true pain, just sharp sensation. This is supposed to be a punishment, even if Dirk predictably enjoys it a little too much. You think he can take… maybe ten forceful strikes. No more than twelve. You flick lightly over the lowest part of his bottom, making sure he’s good and ready.

“All right,” you say, voice low. “Ten strikes, and I want you to count for me.”

A shiver rolls down Dirk’s spine and he rolls his shoulders. “Okay,” he says.

You can’t resist, and step in to kiss his back again. You can see the slowly purpling bruises around his neck and nip at them playfully. Dirk twitches and from this close you can feel him swallow hard. You run a hand down his back and over his ass, just for the sake of being cruel and feeling the heat he’s radiating, then step back and ready yourself.

Aim is crucial. You line the switch up against him exactly where you want it to land, then draw back and swing. The sound of it swishing through the air is very satisfying, but not as satisfying as the way Dirk cries out in shock and jerks forward half a step, as far as the ropes let him. He trembles as the pain curls through him.

“One,” he chokes out, and steps back into place.

“Good,” you say, raising the switch back and setting it below the first stripe.

With the second blow, Dirk doesn’t cry out, just gasps out a harsh breath and says, “Two,” fists clenching and unclenching while you give the pain time to fully sink in. On the third he whimpers, tries to sag against the ropes before forcing himself back upright with a hissed, “Three.” The fourth makes him sob dryly. When you tilt your head to look, you find his dick hard as it would be if you’d been paying attention to it from the start.

“Four,” Dirk says, and drops his head down to his chest.

The fifth strike seems to catch him just right because he staggers again and cries out, “Fuck, Jake, yes, _fuck_.”

“Number,” you warn him.

“ _Five_ , yes, _god_.” Dirk shifts back into place and just moans helplessly, twisting against the ropes.

The sixth strike lands right on the line between his ass and thighs and he moans again, “Six, fuck.” You bite down a laugh. Leave it to Dirk to thoroughly enjoy the harshest punishment you could think of.

For the seventh strike, you hit him across the back of his thighs and he yelps. You drag the switch up over his ass and he squirms away from it. “Seven, Jake, please.”

The eighth you snap against his thighs again, hard as you can manage. He shudders and gasps for breath. The overall pain must be building in intensity with all the previous strikes still throbbing. “Eight,” Dirk finally manages.

Two more. You move back up to his ass and strike him again where you made him moan and he rewards you with a desperate groan. “ _Fu_ -uuuuck, nine.”

God, you want to see him come, he’s earned it. The tenth strike lands just below the ninth and Dirk cries out your name, trembling from head to toe. You duck around in front of him again and use the tip of the switch to push his chin up until he meets your gaze with unfocused eyes, tear streaks clear down his dirt-smeared face.

“Number,” you say.

“Ten,” Dirk whispers. “Please, please, Jake, I need — I need —”

“Need what?” you prompt.

He struggles for a moment. “Your, your hands, anything, choke me again, fuck, please.”

You won’t choke him again for fear of injuring his already-abused windpipe, but you toss away the switch and clap a hand over his mouth and nose, pinching his nostrils shut, and grab his dick. You squeeze it roughly as you jerk it, watching his eyelids flutter and feeling him try to draw breath against the seal of your hand. In your head you count seconds as you stroke him, feeling the wet smear of precum against your hand.

You can see the flutter in his abdomen as his orgasm approaches, and he tries to suck in a breath but fails, a whine building in his throat. At sixty seconds you drop your hand and he gasps a deep lungful of air in and comes with a shout against your shirt. You immediately grab him around the chest as he sags, holding him up against the strain of the rope.

“Easy, easy,” you croon into his ear. “Take it easy, now.”

He breathes in harsh gasps against your shoulder for a minute until you push him back up and bring your knife back out. With two quick drags of it across the rope, Dirk’s arms are free and you lower him to his knees and elbows on the ground. With the help of your knife, you get the knots open until his wrists are free and you rub them carefully, making sure they’re as warm and mobile as they should be. Dirk just trembles against the ground. You cup his cheek and rub your thumb under his eye until he looks at you again.

“We’re not done yet,” you tell him. “Or did you think you were getting away without a good fuck? It’s practically traditional, Dirk. You wouldn’t think to make me go without, would you?”

He whines at you, wordless but pleading. You won’t hear it. If he wanted you to go easy on him then he should’ve taken you up before, when you offered him a lighter sentence. You move back behind him and push his head down, pull his hips up. His ass is covered in neat red lines, hot and visibly painful. There’s a smear of dried blood at the right end of the tenth strike.

You consider for a second, then pop the lube out of your sylladex. You’re not completely cruel. Not wanting to slick up your hands and risk him wiggling away, you squirt it directly into his crack until it drips down sloppily. You fuck him a _lot_ , this will be fine. Popping the lube away again, you take a second to shove your pants down just enough to free your dick, then take ahold of his hips to slide your dick through the mess of lube. Dirk chokes out a pained noise when your hips rub over his sensitive skin.

You’re thorough and careful, making sure the lube coats you as well as it can without involving your hands in the matter, giving him time to adjust to the roll of your hips and try to relax. When you know he’s as ready as he can get, you shift forward to start pressing into him.

Dirk groans out a low note as you slowly open him up around you. He’s tight, so tight, and hot as the fucking blazes inside. You get halfway before you stop, pause, catch your own breath against the incredible hot clench. You slide out just as slowly, thrust up to get more lube on your dick, then push in again. This time you sink in all the way, bit by bit until he wails at the press of your hips against his ass.

You give him time to adjust, pulling back just enough that you aren’t constantly tormenting his welts, then pull back and thrust in again. Dirk huffs out a noise somewhere between pain and the good ache, the slow burning pleasure of being split open on a cock. The sound spikes into pain when you bump into his ass again, but you move back and thrust in faster.

It’s deliciously good, the slide into him, the way he opens for you so easily. Even better is the way you can tell that pain and pleasure are blurring together for Dirk, his moans sharp but his back arched to press back against you. You’ve been hard since you tackled him and fit your hands around his throat, and fucking him is just twisting your belly tighter.

On the next thrust, you groan yourself. “So good,” you pant. “So fucking good, Dirk, if I could keep my dick buried in you all the time I would.”

“Jake,” he sobs. “Jake.”

“So hot, you feel so good.” You reach forward to fist a hand in his hair and drag his head back so you can hear his cries unmuffled. You can feel how burning hot his ass is, skin irritated and painful. He jerks forward when you hit it and then pushes back onto your dick. “You’re so good, Dirk, so good for me, you’re perfect.”

“No, fuck,” he moans. “Please, please.”

Holy hell, you’re close already. He’s such a sight that you can’t help yourself. You unknot your hand from his hair and just press both hands to his back, soaking him in, and let your chin drop to your chest as you hammer home again and again. He’s perfect. _So warm, so good, Dirk._ He did so well. You feel your orgasm on the edge of breaking, press all the way in and hold yourself there as he tries to pull away from the sting, coming deep inside him as you groan his name.

“Jake,” he whispers.

As much as you’d like to collapse on top of him, you know he won’t thank you for it. You pull out and resist the impulse to smack his ass. He stays put, tremors running down his body. When you check, he’s not hard, and you leave it alone.

“Hey,” you say, touching his shoulder. “Dirk, hey.”

He’s gone, doesn’t so much as tilt his head your way. You pull your pants back up and zip up, then gently lift him towards you. He follows limply, lets you pull him up until he rests against your shoulder.

Time to go home. This is going to be a little tricky but you can manage. You can leave the mess behind and come back in a day or two to clean up, just focus on Dirk for now.

Gingerly you guide him up to standing, not the most elegant motion you’ve ever managed but Dirk’s hardly in a place to notice right now. You get an arm around his shoulders and then scoop him up by the knees, wincing in sympathy at how his hip rests against your side, probably aggravating something. It’s a good moment to have divine powers. You lift into the air with him in your arms and fly home.

Dirk starts to stir by the time you land on your doorstep. He’s shivering, naked in the pale sunrise. He opens his eyes a slit, and they’re the precise same shade as the orange streaking across the horizon.

“Hi,” you say softly, finagling the door open and carrying him inside. His weight is starting to strain your shoulders but you can manage.

“Mm,” Dirk says, and shuts his eyes again. You carry him up the stairs to the bathroom with the best tub and settle him on his side on the cushy rug as you lean over to start the tap. He’s filthy, dirt streaking his arms and face, salt crusted in his hair. You both are, really, after all the rolling in the dirt you’ve done, but you’re more concerned about getting him comfortably to bed. He should eat something, too, if you can rouse him enough. You don’t run the water hot, just warm enough to soothe. When the tub fills you nudge him upright and get him to hobble into the tub. He cries out when he tries to sit and you urge him to turn on his side or float.

“Jake,” he whimpers, opening his eyes again.

“I’m here, I have you, I promise.” You bend to try to wipe at least some of the dirt off, enough that he can relax. You don’t bother with soap or shampoo, just try to massage his scalp while he floats so that the worst of the crustiness abates. When you think he’s as good as he’s going to get you let him float for a little longer, filling up the empty glass by the sink with water and getting some pain medicine.

You disturb his peaceful bath to get him out of the tub so it can drain, wrap him up in two warm towels and help him swallow the pills and water. Then you lead him down the hall to your bed. He lays himself obediently down on his stomach and you pull the sheets over him, sit and watch the lines of his face smooth over and his lips part around sleepy breaths. You sit beside him and stroke his hair, easing him to sleep.

In a bit, you’ll wake him and get him to eat something, a few handfuls of nuts and some fruit, maybe, something easy but nourishing. For now, you just need to be with him, watch him to make sure he rests up. You’ll be right there to make sure he never wakes up alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter contains: more predator/prey stuff, physical fighting, choking/strangling, caning, breathplay, anal without much prep, domspace, subspace... dirty talk and threats? i think that's it. lmao.


	3. wait for the sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> songs i referenced in titles for this fic:  
> [we will become, become, become the weary and the wild](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkBf6OEAlws)  
> [you're wound up like a weapon, you've got an evil streak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuNGWSPeXRU)  
> [to the left now, boy, underneath the moon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4ifSSg1HAo)  
> [you'll push back against the sorrow, wait for the sun and we get through](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5G7lPW0xoA)
> 
> thank you very much for reading and all of your wonderful comments.

You wake in the mid afternoon, sunlight streaming in through the window. As soon as you try to move you wince. Damn. You’re sore. Gingerly you roll from your stomach onto your side so you can check the clock and look around the room. You have a vague memory of having been woken up by Jake so you could eat something, but it must have been a while ago because you can feel the beginnings of hunger gnawing at your stomach. 

The bedroom is empty. Jake’s dirty clothes are piled in the corner and you roll your eyes. You hope he at least dumped the wet ones in the washer. His absence makes something in you tighten up with worry, and you inch your way to the edge of the bed and push up to standing. 

Okay. God damn. Ow. You’re not going to be sitting any time soon. Your skin must’ve split in a place or two, because you can feel the cuts stretch when you move. Mostly, though, you just ache from head to toe, and your ass feels like (and probably is) a colorful collection of bruising. You really just want to have a snack, get you boyfriend to smear cold, beautifully soothing lotion on your poor bruised skin, cuddle, and maybe make out a little, but he's not here. 

You don’t want to wander around naked, even in your own house, so you dig around until you find a shirt that hangs a little big and loose on you. Your shoulders twinge when you raise your arms up, stiff from tension and pulling on the ropes. 

Now slightly more presentable, even if it’s probably a very weird look to go strolling around with your dick out, you shuffle to the door and go looking for your boyfriend. He’s nowhere immediately to be found, the bathroom and other rooms empty. The faint note of anxiety in you twists into something deeper and you bite the inside of your cheek. You’re not totally sure about tackling stairs just yet. It would probably be fine, but you ache and you're still mostly naked. It’s weird that he’s not here. Or you’re getting worked up about nothing and Jake is off having a late lunch. 

You take a deep breath. “Jake?” you call, as loud as you can make yourself. 

There’s silence, and then you hear footsteps downstairs. He comes dashing up the stairs a moment later. “Fuck, you’re awake,” he says, looking distressed. “I meant to be there when you woke.” 

“It’s okay,” you say. “Just wondered where you were is all.” 

He nods. “I know, I’m sorry. Let’s get you back to bed.” 

“It’s not like I’m sick,” you say, but let him herd you toward the bedroom. You don’t want to lie down yet, but sitting is out of the question, so you just frown at him. He doesn’t try to manhandle you into bed like usual, just stands there twisting his hands together. “Are you okay?” 

He nods again quickly. “Yes, I’m perfectly ducky, all copacetic. Are… Does anything hurt too bad?”

“Sure,” you say with a raised eyebrow. “I feel like one giant bruise, actually.” You watch him wince. “Not to cast doubt on you, but… you sure you’re okay?” 

“I should be asking you that,” he retorts. “After the number I did on you.” 

“You just did ask me.” 

“Well—” Jake runs an agitated hand through his hair. “Well I should! Have you seen yourself?” 

“No,” you say. “I just got up and went looking for you. I haven’t had the chance to admire the interesting variety of bruises you’ve no doubt left all over me. Why, do I look like I narrowly escaped death by strangulation or something?” 

His face crumples and you immediately regret your glib answer. “Hey, hey, no,” you say, and reach out to pull him against you. He resists for a moment but then wraps his arms around you and holds on tight. “Jake, it’s okay. Tell me what’s wrong.” 

He breathes stuffily into your shoulder and then sniffles. “I just—” he croaks out, and fuck, he sounds miserable. “I don’t know. I just feel—” He breaks off and you can feel him stifling a sob. “It’s stupid.” 

“I don’t care if it is,” you promise. “I want to hear it. I want to help.” 

“I feel bad. About… the whole thing,” he mumbles. “I think I took it too far.” 

You sway gently and hold onto him. “Okay, I have a guess about that,” you say quietly. “You know how sometimes I crash the day after we do an intense scene? Get really tired and just feel like crap?” 

“Mmhm.” Jake doesn’t look up, but he doesn’t let you go. It’s starting to make your shoulders twinge again to hold him like this, but you persevere. 

“I think you’re having some of that,” you say. “Endorphin crash, you know?” 

He shrugs, and you coax him back an inch so you can look at him. He looks tired, puffy bags under his eyes. 

“Will you come lay down with me?” you ask. 

“If you want me to,” he says. 

“I do want you to,” you say, and push him gently toward the bed. He sits and scoots back across it. You pull the covers down pointedly so he’ll get under them and then crawl in with a wince to lie on your stomach against his side. “Okay,” you say once you’re situated. “Will you tell me more about what’s going through your head?” 

“I shouldn’t have…” He blows out a frustrated breath, but his tears seem to have abated. “I don’t know! I shouldn’t have hit you. I definitely shouldn’t have choked you. I could have really hurt you.” 

“We’re gods,” you say. “Neither of us is in any real danger of permanent harm. If you bruised my trachea in a way that doesn’t heal on its own I can always go beg some healing off of Jane. Caning is a pretty normal kink thing.” 

“I know that,” Jake says, and grinds his palm into his eyes. “I know! But I didn’t ask you if it was okay, I didn’t give you a chance to say no.” 

You prod his arm until he leaves his eyes alone. “I didn’t tap out.” 

“Maybe you should have,” he mutters. 

You prop yourself up on one elbow and look at him until he reluctantly meets your gaze. “I didn’t want to,” you say. “I had fun.” 

He looks away and you sigh. You flop back down to curl more securely into his side, not wanting to ask this question to his face. 

“I didn’t want to tap out, but safewording goes both ways,” you say, swallowing against the surge of anxiety in your stomach. “Did you want to stop?” 

There’s a long silence during which the sick feeling only grows, but then Jake admits, “No,” in a quiet voice. “I enjoyed it.” 

“See?” you say, relieved beyond words. It would kill you if Jake ever did something just because he thought it was what you wanted. “I liked it, you liked it, we’re all in the clear.” 

“Yeah, but.” Jake twists onto his side abruptly and wraps an arm around you. His eyes are closed tight and he still looks unhappy. “What sort of person thinks it’s fun to hit his partner? And for what, because you pulled away before I could milk my rod down your throat?” 

“Gross,” you say. “And that’s some distinct revisionist history there. You’ve hit me before and I’ve been fine with it. Hell, I could flip the issue on you. What sort of guy asks his boyfriend to hit him?” You don’t wait for his answer. “One who’s into some pretty common kinks, that’s what. We both agreed that this wouldn’t be a planned-out roleplay. I gave you the go-ahead to do whatever you wanted, and you didn’t take advantage of that. You didn’t hurt me in any way I didn’t like.” 

He sniffs again, a few tears sneaking out from beneath his eyelids. You lean in and kiss the end of his nose to see them flutter open to look at you. Cautiously, you offer him a little smile. 

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” you finish quietly. “I like you just as you are, occasional sadistic moment included.” 

Jake huffs out a few more shaky breaths, face turned to the mattress. You stay close and pressed warm against him until he looks back at you and shakily returns your smile. “We’re well-matched, then,” he says, “because I do love your moments of masochism.” 

You open your mouth to respond, but your stomach growls, ruining the moment. Jake snickers. You pull a face. 

“We burned a lot of calories,” Jake says. “Here, let’s get up, I’ll make you something.” 

Getting out of bed is a challenge again. Jake sits up and watches you scoot to the edge on your stomach and stick your legs off until you can gingerly stand. Later you seriously need to check out these bruises, but food first sounds good. You make your way to the stairs with minimal stiffness, but then scowl downward. 

“I’m too sore for this shit. You should carry me again,” you complain. 

“Sure,” Jake says, and reaches over to scoop you up. 

You yelp as your hip hits his stomach. “I was joking! I can fly down the stairs, jesus, put me down.”

“But I like carrying you,” Jake says, starting down the stairs. 

“I am an inch taller than you,” you grouse. “This is ridiculous.” 

“And an inch longer,” he agrees with an unsubtle glance at your lap. You scowl at him. 

“Just for that, you’re making me pancakes,” you say. 

“Gladly,” Jake returns. He dumps you back on your feet on the ground floor and you follow him to the kitchen. Jake opens the fridge to grab some ingredients and you eye the stools at the far end of the counter. Yeah, no, not happening. You opt to get out a mixing bowl and measuring cups and then lean casually against the cabinets instead. 

“What?” Jake asks when he notices you watching him. 

You shake your head but fail to hide your smile. “Nothing.” You slide him the measuring bowl. 

He waggles his eyebrows at you and starts measuring out ingredients. “Can you start heating up a pan?” 

You can do that. Jake bustles around as you light the burner and put butter on the pan to start melting. You return to watching him as he whisks the dry ingredients together. He's dressed in only an old shirt and boxers and you notice little scrapes on his forearms and calves. Neither of you returned home totally unscathed. 

Can you push the issue a little bit? Should you? You hesitate, lick your lips, then ask, “What was your favorite part?” 

Jake’s hands still for a moment before he cracks the eggs one by one and adds them into the mix. He doesn’t try to play coy with his answer, but he does take awhile to finally reply. “I liked… how you were at the end. You know. When I got to have you.” 

You nod. “Yeah, that was good.” 

“And you?” he asks. “What was your favorite.” 

“Well, the caning, obviously. That was phenomenal.” You drum your fingers on the counter. “But I liked, uh. When I was up in the tree and you talked to me, that was hot.” 

“Did I scare you?” he asks. You think the batter is finished because he stops stirring and taps the fork clean. 

“A little,” you admit. 

“I wanted to frighten you,” Jake says like an accusation. 

You step forward and tuck yourself against his back, wrap your arms around his chest. He leans back into you. 

“I wanted you frightened and scared out of your boots,” he repeats. 

“Dunno if I was scared out of my boots,” you say. “Definitely on edge, though. Room for improvement.” 

Jake snorts and shakes you off. He pours the first pancakes into the pan and you occupy yourself getting out the maple syrup and pouring both of you glasses of orange juice. Jake fills the space between you with aimless chatter about how he put you in the bath when he brought you home, do you remember him washing your hair, do you appreciate the great lengths he goes to in order to appease your preference for things to be clean. You relish the banter. It’s much easier than talking through more of this shit. 

You steal pancakes off the finished stack. Jake complains that you’ll end up eating them all before he can get any, leading to an ill-fated attempt on your part to feed him bites from your own fork. You smear syrup across his cheek and snort orange juice up your nose when Jake gets it on his fingers trying to wipe it off. 

“I can lick it off,” you suggest when you finish coughing. 

“Go to hell, Strider, and bring me back a wet cloth.” 

Your late afternoon pancake extravaganza ends when you unthinkingly move to sit on the counter and swear loudly at the shock of pain. “I’m good,” you say, wincing, in response to Jake’s alarmed exclamation. “Just an idiot who forgot I got my ass caned yesterday.” 

Jake tsks at you. “Oh, I completely forgot. You should go lay down so we can put cream on it.” 

“No, we should clean up,” you disagree. 

“I’ll do it later,” Jake dismisses. “Go on, I’ll be right there, all right?” 

You go, and elect to float up the stairs instead of climbing them like you would do if you had full mobility in your glutes. You plunk yourself face down in bed like you would if you were trying to seduce Jake into fucking you and wait for him to show up. The pillow is nice and soft against your face and you sigh out some of the tension in your spine. 

Jake follows you in not too long after and sits down on the bed beside you. You hear him unscrew the cap off something. 

“Am I purple?” you ask. 

“Purple, blue, green, the whole cool color spectrum,” Jake agrees. “Big stripes of it, too.” 

“Nice,” you say, shutting your eyes. “I’m a god damn artwork.” 

He laughs softly. “I’m glad you finally agree with me.” He dabs the first cold smear of bruise cream on your ass and you wince and then sigh as he starts spreading it around. It hurts if he presses too hard, but he’s being delicate and careful. You are soothed. It’s almost meditative, the quiet and the gentle pressure of his hands. 

“Want me to do your neck, too?” he offers when he’s done. 

You blink your eyes open again and swallow reflexively. “Sure,” you say. 

The bed shifts as he moves closer. You feel his hand on your neck and the unseen weight of him hovering over you makes tingles shiver down your spine with the sense memory of these same hands choking you. Jake is careful to hold your hair out of the way as he slides his hand under your throat ever so carefully. 

“Done,” he says. 

You reach blindly back until you catch his arm and try to tug him down. He fights you off, laughing, and puts the little tub of bruise cream on the bedside table before crawling in beside you. 

“Hey,” you say, suddenly very sleepy. You try to tug the covers over you and then give up and just crawl on top of Jake. His arms go around you automatically, surprised. 

“Hey,” he echoes, the vibration of his voice echoing through your chest. Then, with what you think is a final shred of uncertainty, he asks, “You're sure you're all right?”

You hum. “I'm very happy.”

“Oh. Good.” Jake sneaks a hand under your shirt to lay flat against your bare skin. “I'm glad.”

You nod, tuck yourself in more comfortably against him, and let the rise and fall of his chest lull you to sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter contains: dom drop, self doubt, and a whole bunch of bruises
> 
> it's an unfortunately common misconception that only subs can crash after a scene. sub drop is pretty well-known. but the truth is that doms can, too, from the exertion and intensity. aftercare is important for everyone involved in a scene.


End file.
